Page 262 of Vicious Saint
“Hendrix, you won’t get expelled, okay?” my father reassures her. “We’re going to work this all out.”
A pathetic attempt, but hey, at least he gets to keep his teeth.
I squeeze Hendrix’s cheeks, forcing her to look at me. “You see, Jimi? Everything’s gonna be fine and dandy.”
“I…I haven’t acted like that in such a long time.”
“We’ll call it celebratory violence, then.”
The joke hits the spot enough to include a chuckle in her cries.
“Such…an…idiot.”
“Insults. Yes.” I pull her to my chest. “That’s more like it.”
At some point during our talk, Hendrix’s mother journeyed back to where she came from between her sister and husband. At least smart enough to know not to fuck with whoever is managing to calm down her panic stricken daughter.
“I wanted to kill her, Saint,” Hendrix rasps, low enough for only me to hear. “And I would’ve if you didn’t stop me.”
I leave out the fact I already knew this, that I saw the familiar hunger for death in her eyes, knowing now is a pretty bad time to compare psychotic notes.
“But I stopped you…and I will always be there to stop you.”
“You…really…mean that?” she asks, chest still heaving.
“I mean…as long as you promise to leave the snorting to the pigs.”
Hendrix’s ability to laugh comes through easier this time, and continues to do so once I help her utilize my breathing technique.
“In like a balloon…out through a straw,” I repeat the phrase for her, and the more she listens the more I feel her heart rate even out. “There you go.”
“I think I’m okay,” she says after a few more rounds, her voice low and hoarse.
“I don’t know…” I whisper. “That was some grade A sucking you did there.”
“We all better, baby?”
Fucking June can’t take a hint.
Hendrix removes herself from my chest to face her mom. “Yeah, I am.”
The twin aunt approaches us next.
Then the damn Italian.
Dad and Theory trailing behind, forming a circle of uncomfortable assholes around us.
“That was some pretty good work you did with our girl, kid.” Poppy slaps my arm. “Gotta say, I’m impressed.”
The concern hidden behind June’s smile tells me she does not at all agree with her spitting image of a sister. In fact, she looks as though me soothing her daughter is some sort of existential fear unlocked.
Sounds like quite the personal problem.
“You should really get some sleep,” June says to Hendrix, brushing fingers through her unruly hair. She tilts her head in confusion, pulling out a stray leaf. “Jeez…where the hell were you two fighting? In a tree?”
Hendrix’s face blushes a whole ass shade of red. “Uh…”
Oh, making her mother squirm is about to become my favorite pastime. “Actually, June, it was upagainstone.”
